“I felt like destroying something beautiful…”

Times have been busy at the Old Country Iron Club as one can tell from the recent posts. In between Pipehitters, gearing up for the Caliber Cycle, hyping upcoming competitions the Iron Club would be participating in, the results of said competitions, there has been scant time for a post on a very important subject…how Hollywood has decided to destroy the Filer family’s childhoods.

You see the movie industry has this problem of not letting classics stay classics anymore. Am I being a little overly dramatic? Frack no! The following events/announcements all came out within 2 weeks of each other. When I heard about these things, it felt like I had been dosed with gamma radiation. Gauge your response.

George Lucas changes a classic scene…again

I love George Lucas, he gave us Star Wars (as well as a certain awesome archaelogist) but someone please tell him to stop fucking up the movies. He already hurt the films in the Special Edition of A New Hope when he changed from Han Solo from a scroundel to acting in self defense. Han shot first and I will show a bootlegged copy of the original to my son to prove that. But if that wasn’t enough, Lucas decided to destroy another pivotal moment he created in Return of the Jedi. WARNING! The mere sight of this clip may make you want to drive to the Skywalker Ranch and run over Lucas Stephen King style.

I don’t even know where to start with that. In the original you were able to read the emotion in Darth Vader’s face with no words through a helmet, now we have this horseshit! What’s next? Luke sporting a Justin Bieber haircut, Princess Leia wearing a bath robe over her slave outfit. Breath Nickay, this can’t get any worse.

Point Break Remake

I was wrong, it just did. I don’t even know where to start with this announcement. Point Break is not only a Filer family classic, but it is a god damn staple of the OCIC, there was even a post on just quotes from the movie. How many other movies do you know has it’s own live version of the show touring the United States? How about one, Point Break. But now Hollywood because they have run out of ideas has decided to remake this modern day masterpiece. There are two major problems with this decision.

1. The new Point Break will not revovle around surfing. WTF? The name of the movie is based off of surfing! The new movie will be set in the world of international extreme sports and also involve an FBI agent infiltrating a crime ring. So we are taking out surfing out of this classic and replacing it with what exactly. Skydiving? Drop Zone with Wesley Snipes. Motorcycles? Torque with Ice Cube. I can go on if I have to. I mean I can think of only one possible extreme sport where this movie would not be a complete failure which leads to my second point.

2. They already remade Point Break! Here is the plot of a movie for you, young and inspiring cop inflitrates a tight knit group of an underground scene to find out who has been committing robberies. During this time hebecomes best friends with the head of the group and he falls for the sister of his new best friend. Because of this closeness he fails to realize that the robbers he has been chasing are his new friends. That movie sound familar? It’s Point Break right? Wrong.

Yes, The Fast and the Furious is a remake of Point Break. Think I’m wrong? Its the same right down to our hero letting the bad guy get away at the end. Did it succeed, well actually it did. The Fast and the Furious worked because they were sneaky about it and didn’t broadcast to the world that they were screwing around with a classic. With our luck this new Point Break will turn into another XXX, I am even willing to put $10 down that Vin Diesel is in the movie.

First Red Dawn, then Dirty Dancing, now Point Break, they keep this up and Patrick Swayze is going to rise from his grave and kick start the zombie apocaylpse to stop them screwing up his movies.

Christian Bale- That could be Intense, and good- too good. We’re re-casting Swaze not Ben Kinglsley. Point Break was an action movie and we need an action star. We also don’t need some Method actor getting himself crushed off the coast of Australia before filming begins. NO, I’m casting Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. There are 3 important reasons why this islander version would succeed.
1) Charisma
2) Traps
3) Traps

That guy has the hair for it and is totally getting casted in this project, but not as Bodhi. I don’t see him dropping the “you want me so bad its like acid in your mouth” line but I could see that little old guy dropping “See you in hell Johny!”

Love the post… and I totally agree. The a-holes in Hollyweird are really doing a number on modern day movies because, despite the large number of blockbusters over the last few years, they just aren’t making movies anymore.

Now, before I go any further, I was originally reading this post on my Windows 8 tablet, but busted out the keyboard about half way into my first sentence so you know I’m about to get carried away. If you’re not in for a long winded-conspiracy theory rant abouthow Harry Potter ruined it for everyone and why Rocky wouldn’t get made by any Hollywood studios today, then stop reading now and have a nice day.
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If you’re still reading (my guess is at least Nick is), then here we go.

So a few years ago the writers in Hollywood went on strike. This mostly affected TV shows because their writers write episodes every for weekly shows, whereas movies have a much larger lead time, and their scripts have all largely been written.

Around the same time the Harry Potter movies were racking in buckets of cash, as where the Marvel movies like Spider Man for example (Iron Man and X-men [yes I now X-men isn’t a Marvel Comic]) and other comic based movies are a few others.

So the Hollywood executives get together and say… “hmmm, how do we keep on making millions but cut costs to a bare minimum??? What do we do if the writers go on strike and stop producing content for us? I know let’s just stop making new movies, and only do remakes of old movies and/or movies based on books. We don’t need writers for those, just good special affects and oh yeah 3-D and we’ll make millions.”

Think I’m wrong??? Well tell me one movie made in the last 5 years that wasn’t an adaptation of a comic book, fictional novel, Broadway musical, play, or remake of an older film. Don’t worry I’ll wait…..

The answer is “Avatar” but that one doesn’t count because James Cameron signed on to make that movie decades ago but waited until the technology was there to do it justice.

Studios today are just looking to get a good return on investment. Therefore, they look for movies were that have a predictable fan base. Harry Potter is a perfect example. If 80 million kids bought and loved the book, then we can pretty much guarantee that those same kids will come to the theater to see the movie. If you’re not a math person I’ll do the math for you 80 Million X 150% (not all readers will see the movie but since alot of those readers are kids they’ll bring at leat 1 parent) = 1.2 tickets sold. If we sell tickets for $10 that’s a total of $10.2 billion in box office sales. Once they have this figure they can figure out what actors to hire (cost of the talent), how much to pay for CGI and special affects (cost of production), where to film the movie (cost for sets and stuff) how much for producers/directors, and at the end of the day this movie is easier to finance and get made.

So what does that mean for us. Well crappy movies like Thor and Percy Jackson and the the olympians get made, where-as awesome movies like Rocky, The Goonies, and even Star Wars would get left out of today’s studio conversations. Movie executives would rather remake Karate Kid with Jayden Smith (who doesn’t even do Karate by the way) in China and/or Footloose (come-on Kevin Bacon…. really) because it’s cheaper and comes with some gaurantee about how many people will pay to go see it.

I know I’m long winded, but here’s something to consider. Remember a little film written, directed, by it’s star Sylvester Stalone??? Yeah I’m talking about the first Rocky. That movie had no special affects, no costly sets, no 3D, no CGI, no car chases, no explosions, etc… none of that stuff. It was just a good script and a great idea for a film. It had the right mix of action and drama and people ultimately loved it. Would that movie ever get made today or are we just stuck with Twilight sequels, remakes of 80’s films, and movies about whatever teenagers like (Justin Beiber, Never say Never) for the rest of our lives?????

Me and Z spoke on this just now and this may be the best rant someone has ever posted on Old Country Strong. I can just see Adrian hammering away at his keyboard. I will not sully this awesome much more than to say I agree wholeheartedly.

What are some of the newer anticipated movies Hollywood is banking on? Hunger Games? Not only based off a book but a trilogy, with our luck they will try to get four movies out of it. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Not only a book but also a remake. Now do not get me wrong, I am not against adapting books. Two of the top five movies of all time are based off of books (Godfather and Gone with the Wind), but it is a problem when you are adapting a book to be a movie because you are unimaginative to figure anything else out.

Your last five best picture winners:
2006: The Departed–>Remake of Infernal Affairs (awesomely done though)
2007: No Country for Old Men–>Adapted from the novel of the same name
2008: Slumdog Millionaire–> Adapted from the novel Q & A
2009: The Hurt Locker–> An original screenplay
2010: The King’s Speech –> An orignal screenplay based off historic events so you can say maybe not the most inventive idea

There is a rebellion to this issue in Hollywood. Besides Hurt Locker, we have also had Avatar, Inglorious Basterds, Inception, whatever non-sequel Pixar throws out there, some people still want to use their imagination. We just have to support them when they do it.